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Open a GEDCOM file online: a free GEDCOM viewer

A GEDCOM file (.ged) holds a whole family tree as plain text: every person, their dates and places, and who is whose parent and partner. In a text editor it reads as lines like 1 BIRT and 2 DATE 12 MAR 1871. Draw My Tree opens it in your browser and draws it as a family tree you can search, explore and print, with nothing to install.

Open your GEDCOM as a guest: up to 50 people, read and drawn in your browser without sending the file to us. For a bigger file, create a free account; one tree is free, files up to 25 MB.

What you can do with the file once it is open

  • See it as a tree. Generations line up, couples sit side by side, siblings stand in birth order, and lines avoid crossing where they can. Zoom out for the whole family or in for one branch.
  • Find anyone. Search by name and the tree moves to that person. Click a card for their details: dates and places of birth, baptism, death and burial, other names, life events such as census, immigration and occupation, and the file's notes as their story.
  • Follow one line. The Filter panel's Focus on a person shows only someone's ancestors, only their descendants, everyone within a few relationship steps, or the chain of relatives connecting two people. Use it to answer "how am I related to her?"
  • Switch the chart. The same people as a fan chart, a numbered pedigree chart, or a timeline of lifespans.
  • Print or export it. A vector PDF at any size, SVG or PNG; a family group sheet or Ahnentafel report for any person; or the data again as JSON, CSV or a corrected GEDCOM. Convert a GEDCOM file to a printable PDF covers each format.

How to open it

  1. Get the file. Most genealogy programs and sites export one: Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch (through a desktop program), Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, Legacy, Gramps, Ahnenblatt and others. Import a GEDCOM has the click paths for Ancestry, MyHeritage and FamilySearch, and where to look in any other program.
  2. Open Draw My Tree, as a guest at /start or in your account, and choose Import on the rail.
  3. Drop the .ged file in, or click to browse, then Preview. You see how many people, relationships and events the file holds, and a warning for anything it could not read.
  4. Apply import. A new tree opens on the file's home person: the one it marks, else the person who made the file, else its first person.

Is the file kept private?

As a guest, the file never leaves your browser: it is read, drawn and saved there. With an account, the people and relationships it describes are stored in your account, where nobody else can see them unless you share the tree; the file itself is not kept. What happens to your file has the details, and you can delete the tree, or download it whole as JSON, at any time.

Frequently asked questions

Which GEDCOM versions open? GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1, the versions almost every program writes. Files in UTF-8 or UTF-16 open, and so do older files in ANSEL, ANSI, Macintosh and other legacy encodings, with accented and non-Latin letters intact.

What does not come through? Photos (a GEDCOM names them but the files stay in the app they came from), source citations, and tags one program invented that others do not read. The preview lists what it skipped. What might not carry over has the full list.

Is it free? Opening and drawing the file is free, as a guest or with a free account, and so is a watermarked, screen-sized PNG. JSON export is free with an account. A free account can also print a chart of up to 5 generations from one person on Letter or A4, as a PDF or PNG, with a small "Made with Draw My Tree" credit line instead of the watermark. Larger charts, poster sizes, the whole tree as a PDF, SVG, GEDCOM, CSV and full-resolution images come with a one-time Keepsake for that tree, or with the Family Plan for every tree. Prices are on the pricing page.

Can I fix mistakes and send the file back? Yes. Correct names and dates in the tree, then export a GEDCOM and import it into the program you came from. GEDCOM export comes with a Keepsake or the Family Plan; JSON export is free on every account.

Does it work on a phone? Yes. The tree pans and zooms with your fingers, and the import works from the phone's files.

Last updated October 11, 2026 by Prescott Bros LLC, the makers of Draw My Tree.